


A Short Guide to Human Emotions

by samiwinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcoholic Dean, Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining!Cas, Season/Series 09, slightly nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samiwinchester/pseuds/samiwinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel wonders how he would ever begin to explain how he feels to Dean Winchester, who shows up on night after the truth about Ezekiel comes out and Sam runs off on his own once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Short Guide to Human Emotions

“I love you, Dean Winchester” You try out how the words feel in your mouth as you stand in front of a grimy motel bathroom mirror. You feel like they are supposed to feel good. A weight off your shoulders to have the thought out in the open, but for some reason they feel wrong. Metallic and forced and very, very _inadequate_.

“I love you, Dean Winchester” You try again, hands rested against the sink, forehead wrinkled, and eyes focused, like you can see something on the horizon but it’s blurry and nondescript. 

You try for something more elaborate, like perhaps it is going to make the words sound more real and less typical, “I knew when I was told to raise your soul from hell how important you were, I knew that you were going to change the world, that you were going to play a key role in the grand story, but I didn't know _you_. I didn't know your goodness or your humanity or how beautiful you are and I am in love with you” But still you feel as though you can not properly express this feeling that causes your bones to ache and your eyes to crinkle and your heart to simultaneously feel whole and like its shattering to pieces. 

Out of nowhere you feel like crying because the right words seem impossible to find. You wrack your mind for something that could even begin to describe the way you feel in every language you know, but nothing seems pure enough. Nothing seems to fit the way that sometimes you see Dean Winchester and you hate him, but not in the same way you hate Metatron or Crowley or Lucifer, but in this odd way that makes you want to punch him in the face and tell him he is wonderful and that not everything is his fault and that you think he is amazing. Nothing seems to describe that you love him so much that his inability to appreciate himself makes you wish you could hate him in that pure way you hate demons and the devil. Nothing seems to be able to portray the way you care so much that you almost want to cry at the crushing weight of it. 

You sigh and rub your eyes in a tired way before walking out of the motel room and walking to work, still trying to form sentences in your head that could possibly explain this feeling without sounding cliche or ugly or forced. 

Around noon you wonder why you care so damn much about telling Dean how you feel when he was the one who kicked _you_ out. When part of you wants to live a normal life, but some part of you would rather live no life at all then one without Dean Winchester in it.

At six you find yourself in front of the mirror again telling your reflection “Dean Winchester you are the most wonderful human being on this planet and don’t let anyone or anything tell you otherwise” and “I hate you so much for making me love you you absolute idiot, Dean Winchester”. You say it with different emotions and different faces and different tones but nothing feels right and by the time you are crawling into bed you have only made yourself feel bitter that you are falling asleep alone and without having collected your thoughts into something coherent.

...

For several week the question plagues you almost constantly. You ask yourself questions like _when will I ever get to tell him this?_ and _even if I got the chance what makes me think I’d take it?_ and _what are the odds he’d say something back?_

Slowly but surely the doubts racing through your minds overwhelm the idea of ever telling Dean how much he means to you and so you let it go. You tell yourself that this human life is far too short to be pining over something long since over. 

Although, some mornings you wake up and you’re thinking about what you would tell him if you could, and you have to remind yourself that there is a whole world to see and you have a whole life to live and it’s not worth wasting on something that’s been lost. 

Then again, sometimes you struggle to imagine a human life without the Winchesters. Sometimes you find yourself daydreaming- and more often than not it’s about making the freckles on Dean’s face into constellations, and not of the days when you and your family were in heaven together and life was not so very, very complicated. 

And this is how your life is for a long time, a constant ebb and flow of missing the Winchesters and thinking of calling and then telling yourself it’s not worth it, that they don’t need you, that Dean was the one who wanted you gone in the first place.

...

And then, one Thursday at three in the morning, there he is knocking at your door, chin tucked into his jacket and hands clasped in front of him and his eyes are red and puffy like he’s been crying for hours. You can almost smell the bourbon he’s been drinking melting off of his skin.

“Dean? What are you doing here?” You ask, pulling him inside your dirty motel room by the sleeve of his jacket before he is able to respond, “How did you know where to find me?” Your heart feels inflated for a moment before falling to the pit of your stomach. You want ask him why he has this tendency of showing up every time you are just about to move on. 

Instead of answering your questions Dean shakes his head and looks towards the heavens for answers that he knows he won’t be able to find there. The part of you that was never able to let go grabs at your heart like a hungry child and pressures your lips into forming the words you had thought so much about, but you withhold, your doubts making you weary with confusion and anxiety.

Dean however, seems rather preoccupied as he sits motionless on your motel bed with tears in his eyes like shimmering diamonds set against an emerald. The he looks down and he says, “I've fucked up, Cas.” 

You want to hit him. You want to throw him out of a window because you know whatever it is he is beating himself to death about is probably not his fault. You want to shower him with kisses and ‘I-love-you’s’ until he sees straight, and you almost act upon this until he elaborates further, “Sammy’s run off again,” he says, “and this time I don’t know if he’s going to be back again.” He pauses for a long time and the melancholy silence makes you shiver. The long drawn out quiet that seems to fill emotional situations like water in a bathtub or like a lead weight on your chest is one thing you’ve never quite understood- or enjoyed. The way it makes your shoulders feel heavy and your eyes tired and your heart sink. _Humans are so odd_ , you tell yourself, _the way silence can mean so many different things to them, all depending on the situation._

“Dean…” You whisper, taking a step towards him before he begins half talking, half drunken slurring again. 

“Cas please don’t try to tell me this wasn’t my fault. It was. This is all my fault.” His words are slow and dripping with liquor. Then suddenly rage is flashing across his face, making his freckles stand out against the redness of his cheeks, “Goddammit!” He yells, standing and kicking an empty box as hard as he can so that is slams into the wall across from him and drops to the ground with a saddening wilt. You aren’t sure what to say. So you say nothing. It seems to you that whenever you try to fix things you end up ruining them, so you decide to go ahead and let Dean figure out his emotions before speaking.

“I- I let an angel possess him, Cas” He whispers, sitting again, running one hand through his hair while the other falls limp on his knee. You feel your eyebrows rise and then sink. 

“What?” You demand, “Who was it, Dean-” You are saying, moving to him and placing both hands on his shoulders so that he looks up at you. Your eyes beg to him to think clearly enough that he can formulate a comprehensible answer.

“Said his name was Ezekiel” Dean said, eyes so filled with tears they were beginning to form drops near the corners and fill the wrinkles formed from the crinkles in his eyes when he smiles. 

“I’ve never heard of an Ezekiel-” You say, thinking out loud, hands dropping from his shoulders and your face contorted with worry. Which of your siblings could be so underhanded that they lie to someone to possess them- much less one of the Winchesters, who they all know are dangerous when made angry. You push the thought out of your mind and focus once again on Dean. 

“Well it doesn’t matter now because he’s long gone-” He’s rambling, “and so it Sam. Prob’ly half way across the country by now. 'E said he didn't need me to keep tryin’ to protect him. Said he wanted me to make my first priority finding a way to protect myself first-”

A single tear carved a river in the dips and bends of his face and he swallowed hard, “Cas- you wouldn't happen to have anything to drink would you?” He says, attempting futilely to stop the tears that were beginning to fall everywhere- crashing into the comforter between his legs like little salt water bombs. 

“Dean-” You say, but he’s pulling your arm towards him and wrapping his hand around your neck and pulling your lips to his-

and you can taste the liquor on his breath, his lips soft and his warmth and his skin is wet with sweat and all efforts to stop the tears from falling seem to have stopped. You jerk backwards in surprise, and he looks at you like you've killed a small animal - or maybe more like he’s killed a small animal and you’re scolding him for it. _Human emotions are so difficult to interpret_ , you think. 

“Dean- I-” You stammer wildly- searching for something in the contents of your mind that could mend the situation in your favor. 

“‘ts okay, Cas- I’ll go-” He says with rosy cheeks, he stands suddenly and starts walking- well, more like swaying awkwardly- towards the door. You try not to think about him driving in that state and what could have happened to him on his way here. 

You grab his arm, “No it’s just- I- I don’t have anything to drink.” You say and he nods slowly before crawling back to your bed wordlessly and slipping between the covers and falling fast asleep in a matter of seconds. You breathe a sigh of relief. 

You don’t dare to sneak in next to him for fear of what he would say come the morning, so you steal a pillow from the bed and try to sleep on the hard motel floor.

…

At seven the sun is rising and you’re still staring at the popcorn ceiling and trying to make sense out of everything that happened in the thirty minutes or so before Dean collapsed into your bed. The bumps on the ceiling remind you of mountain ranges and solar systems and you find yourself making shapes out of them as you think.

An angel whose identity is a mystery lies to the Winchesters and- what? stows away in Sam’s mind for months? You don’t want to believe that Dean would allow something so sinister to take place, you don’t want to believe that you weren't there to tell him he was being an idiot. You don’t want to think about how he was so drunk last night and driving cross country to meet you. You don’t want to think about the way his mouth felt against yours and you _definitely_ don’t want to think about the way he looked at you when you pulled away from his kiss. 

Around nine you get up, exhaustion had caught up with you a few hours ago but you don’t think you could sleep if you tried. Instead you walk to a gas station down the road- not the gas’n’sip, some other foreign gas station where they do not seem to be mopping the floors on a daily basis or cleaning the bathrooms very often. You cringe a little inside when you pay the clerk with a twenty dollar bill for two cups of coffee and a bottle of pills you think looks a bit like the one you've seen Dean with on other various mornings, when he woke up after a night of drinking and cradled his head in his hands and yelled at you to stop talking so much. 

By the time you get back, he’s stirring a little under the white comforter and when you shut the door behind you he peeks at you from under the covers, shielding his eyes from the sunlight that is pouring in from the windows. 

You sit next to him, “I got you some coffee- and some pills, but I don’t know what kind are good for hangovers-” you say to him, looking at the bottle and handing him the coffee. 

“Cas what- what am I doing here?” He says, his voice soft and crunchy like he’d just tried to swallow a tablespoon of sand. 

You raise your eyebrows, “You don’t remember why you’re here?” 

“Well, I remember- shit-” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes as he sits up, curling his legs underneath him, You suddenly become very aware of how little space is between you, “Sam.” He whispers. 

“I've been thinking about who Ezekiel could be,” you said, shifting and trying to make shapes out of the popcorn ceiling again. 

“Oh, man,” Dean says, “let’s not talk about that douche nugget right now-” 

“Dean-” You say, because it’s important that you know. You have your suspicions about who this mysterious Ezekiel character could be and they’re not very pretty.

“Seriously, man, not right now, alright?” He says, and you decide to drop it for the time being. 

“That’s all you remember?” You ask and he gives you a weird look. 

“That’s it.” He says, hiding his eyes in his hands. He looks up at you suddenly with a wild panic, “Why we didn't- oh shit, Cas I-” 

“No, Dean, we didn't have sex” You say and his look of relief sends a small dagger through your heart. Not that you wanted a drunken three-am kiss to mean something, but you sort of thought it had meant _something_.

"No I know that's not- never mind" Dean says quickly (and you try to ignore the way his face has shifted from relief to sadness- maybe even disappointment- and how your heart does a hopeful back flip in your chest), “mind if you hand me those pills?” He asks and you quickly hand him the bottle you’ve been grasping a little too tightly for the last few minutes. 

The two of you sit in silence for a while and listen to the sounds of the town waking up outside of the motel. Cars begin to roar down the road and people come and go from the motel parking lot outside. 

Finally, Dean speaks, “I’m sorry for being such a dick to you” he says quietly, staring into the half empty cup of coffee, “it wasn't meant to be- it wasn't my decision.” 

As he speaks he’s twisting his hands around the cup nervously, like he’s afraid you won’t be able to forgive him. You sigh a little and look at him, “it’s okay, Dean” you tell him (a bit grudgingly, as part of you is still bitter about having to hitch hike in the cold and live in constant fear of danger, but you know Dean would probably forgive you if the roles were reversed and you can't expect him to make accommodations for you just because you're human). 

“No, dude, it’s not okay- I let some stupid dick who I don’t even know tell me that you weren't allowed to stay because it wasn't safe for him… I should have known right then that he wasn't worth keeping around because-” He drifted off a little bit and his eyes met yours for a few seconds before he looked down into his coffee again, “I’m just really sorry- you probably don’t want me around now anyway.”

And now it’s your turn to be a little reckless, even though you won’t have the excuse that you were drunk and emotional, and you pull him closer by the lapel of his thin green surplus jacket and shut your eyes as your lips crash together. This time it is much less unpleasant- less rushed, less helpless, and more like a warm flower is blooming as he melts into your touch and his hand grazes your hip and your hands move from his chest to his face because you want to hold him here in this moment forever. It’s like for a second there is only you and Dean and the world has melted away, you are not in a dirty motel room and you are not a fallen angel who has failed at everything and he is not so terribly afraid of losing Sam, and you are together- and for one tiny moment the world stops spinning and suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fit together and you know exactly what to say to Dean Winchester. 

You dip your head down and break the kiss, and looking at the tiny dots that cover his nose and cheeks and the way he looks so flustered and surprised but also so happy and you manage the tiniest of smiles, “I have spent the last few months contemplating what a short,” you planted a kiss on his lips, “human life I have to live and what it would be like without you,” and another on the corner of his mouth, “Dean Winchester, and every time I would begin to manage pushing you away the thought of you, you would manage to weasel your way back in to my mind somehow.” He’s got these big puppy eyes and and you want to laugh and plant kisses across his entire face and entwine the swirling galaxies of your souls together and let the heat of your bodies warm each-other during long winter nights, “I hate it,” you whisper and something in his eyes breaks, but you push forward, “I hate the way I care so much about you that I can’t even manage to spend fifteen minutes of my life without thinking about you.” You move your kisses from his mouth to his jawline, “I hate you because you have become my everything and I can not express to you in any language how much I love you because it will never be enough” to the curve of his neck, “I hate you so much, Dean Winchester,” and where his neck meets his shoulders “and I will love you until the stars burn out and the universe flickers into non existence because you are all I have left.”

And then Dean is looking at you the way you’ve seen him look at some girls except this is much deeper than a hookup in a bar, and he is almost crying as he kisses you again, and you can taste the warm coffee and he smells vaguely like rust and cinnamon and leather and his scruff scratches at your cheeks. He stops for a minute and looks at you with those glittering green eyes and smiles and then you are all arms and legs and lost clothing and soft words and warm touches that make your toes curl until you are falling asleep with his arms wrapped around your stomach and right as the world starts to fade into a quiet dream you hear the righteous man whisper, “I love you, too, Cas.”


End file.
